No school resource officer from the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office was patrolling STEM School Highlands Ranch on Tuesday before a fatal shooting because the law enforcement agency declined to renew the school’s contract for the position over the summer.

Documents released Friday afternoon by Sheriff Tony Spurlock outlined a dispute over the previous school resource officer’s duties, performance and equipment. The school district also requested a $6,731 refund after the assigned school resource officer fell sick in April 2018 and couldn’t finish the end of the school year.

Under the previous contract, the sheriff’s office paid half of the school resource officer’s salary, STEM School paid a quarter of his salary — about $26,925 — and SkyView Academy paid the final quarter. The deputy split his time between the two schools.

In a statement released Friday night, STEM school administration said it partnered with the sheriff’s office from 2013 through early 2018 in providing an SRO.

“That partnership was excellent from our perspective, but we began to have challenges with the SRO assigned to us in 2018,” STEM School said in the statement. “We expressed our concerns directly to DCSO, and they offered us a better alternative to have a daily part-time, off-duty sheriff’s deputy with a squad car. We supplemented that with full-time private security services provided by BOSS High Level Protection. That combination gave us a significant increase in protection for our staff and students.”

According to the sheriff’s office, after the school resource officer got sick, STEM School leadership requested they be refunded the $6,731 they had already paid for the deputy’s work. The school officials also said they wanted the school resource officer to focus more on directing traffic and to mingle more with students.

The sheriff’s office, however, said that directing traffic was not a priority under the deputy’s contract and also said the school did not provide the deputy with the private work space that he needed.

The sheriff’s office ultimately refunded the money, but did not renew the contract, a July letter from Spurlock to Eucker showed. The sheriff told the school officials they could instead hire a private firm, hire a deputy through the Douglas County Deputy Sheriff’s Association, which is used to hire off-duty deputies, or agree to pay half of the salary for a school resource officer.

“After several follow-up discussions with STEM School administration regarding the difference in how they used the SRO, versus the authorized duties of a deputy sheriff, the Sheriff’s Office did not feel the STEM School could follow the requirements of the agreement,” Spurlock said in a statement Friday.

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office employs nine school resource officers that work in 14 schools, Bronner said.

In its statement, STEM officials credited its private security guard, the sheriff’s deputies’ quick response and students and staff taking heroic measures during Tuesday’s shooting “minimizing the number of fatalities and casualties.”